intentionally unobservant

Matt Baines, a GP Partner in Coventry, encourages us to avoid the distractions of comparison and hypervigilance

Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. (Galatians 6:4, New Living Translation)

As clinicians, we are trained to notice. We observe subtle expressions, shifts in affect, and small inconsistencies in a patient’s history, always discerning what questions to ask next. This fine attunement to cues is vital to good clinical practice.

Beyond the consulting room, I’ve realised that this same hyper-awareness can turn inward, fuelling self-criticism and anxiety. Constantly scanning the environment, noting what others are doing, achieving, or implying, does not always serve us well. In an age where data and comparison are only a scroll away, such vigilance can quietly breed insecurity and a sense that life is somehow falling short. We can all find ourselves running a kind of internal risk assessment that never switches off.

This heightened awareness easily spills into comparison. Much has been written about how we measure our lived reality against an imagined, idealised version of life – one that exists only in our minds. Yet because our feelings fluctuate with tiredness, hunger, emotion, or lack of sleep, they make a terrible barometer, while truth remains steady.

In Galatians 6, Paul gives the Galatian church practical guidance on how to live within a Christian community. The letter reminds us that we are justified by faith in Christ alone, called to live by the Spirit, to walk in unity, and to support one another. Yet each of these depends on an inner work; a transformation of the heart that involves honest self-examination and personal accountability for how we think and live.

Paul offers a spiritually and psychologically liberating way forward, testing our own actions without comparing to someone else’s. Paul invites us to practise what might be called ‘intentional unobservance’ – not carelessness, but a gentle loosening of the hypervigilant gaze. It is the conscious refusal to monitor every imagined expectation, perceived judgment, or unmet ideal.

In a profession built on noticing, Christ invites us to look less around and far more upward. Intentional unobservance frees us to inhabit our real lives with gratitude; to practise our professions, and indeed to live, from a place of peace rather than comparison. It is the choice to release the burden that God never asked us to carry.

Learning to live this way means loosening our grip on control, receiving God’s steadier truth, and growing in gratitude for the life we actually have and not the one we imagine we should be living.